Star Fox: An Empire's Legacy
by Caid11
Summary: Fox and his team are having a bit of trouble with the end of the Lylat Wars. Without Andross' empire running rampant, missions have gotten pretty scarce. Fortunately for Fox, this will end soon.
1. Prologue

_Hi guys! Hope you like my story. I haven't ever really done a Fanfic before, so hopefully it captures the characters well and they sound and act like they should. Oh, and any feedback would be appreciated!_

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><p><span>Star Fox: An Empire's Legacy<span>

Fox glanced around the cockpit of his arwing. Nearly all of the small dials and switches which populated the small space were powered down. This, combined with his squadron's current position in the shadow of a large planet, made everything extremely dark. Something like this wouldn't normally have bothered Fox, but the lack of light made the cramped arwing cockpit feel more than a little suffocating. Thankfully, his communications were still active, making him feel slightly less like he was floating in a coffin, even if the invisible waves of energy might give him away. Though, he was fairly certain that wouldn't happen. Pirates weren't known for having the best sensors around.

Suddenly, Fox's headset squelched to life, "I know we need the money Fox, but isn't this stooping kind of low?"

"Quiet Falco! And yes, it is stooping a bit low. But, Pepper said that he'd have more missions for us if we did this one. And besides, these are pirates; it's not like this isn't anything that they do on a daily basis." Fox replied, sounding a bit more authoritative than he meant to.

Falco didn't offer any argument, like he usually did. Fox knew it was because he didn't have anything to say. After all, money was scarce after the end of the Lylat War. With Andross dead, the only fights that Star Fox participated in were putting down pirates and the occasional brush with Star Wolf. Normally, this work wouldn't be too bad, but wages for mercenaries had fallen considerably in the last few years, with most planets focusing more on reconstruction than on hunting down pirates who really didn't affect their trade very much. In fact, it seemed like the only one willing to hire the team was General Pepper, and he only gave them small "busy work" assignments.

Fox remembered when Pepper contacted them for this mission. Falco was revolted by the idea of an ambush, and Slippy didn't want to just leave the ships vulnerable when they were waiting for the enemy. But, they needed the money. And, when Pepper said that he could get them more missions if they completed this one, Fox accepted without hesitation. It didn't occur to him until later that those missions might require them to stoop as low as this one.

Fox's headset buzzed for a second time, interrupting his train of thought.

"Fox, we've got multiple ships approaching," came Slippy's high pitched voice.

"Alright everybody, get ready. Once they pass us, power up your arwings and hit 'em as hard as you can. There shouldn't be too many ships, and they shouldn't have much in the way of weaponry," Fox said. He didn't have to add that they would be burning expensive fuel if they took too much time.

Seconds ticked by, though they felt like hours. Fox squinted out of his cockpit, and saw a tiny patch of darkness moving across the stars. In moments, it turned into the silhouette of a ship. Fox continued to watch, realizing that this ship was probably one of the pirates that they were waiting for. He resisted the urge to order his team to attack right then and there. If they did, the rest of the pirates could get away, or worse, call in for backup.

Suddenly, the silhouette began moving faster. Fox wondered why for a split second, then realized that it was turning toward him.

"Everybody, we've been spotted! Power up all systems and engage at will!" Fox yelled into his headset.

"But we were completely powered down! There's no way they could have spotted-" Slippy began.

"Just get those diffusers runnin' Slip!" Peppy interrupted.

Fox frantically worked the controls on his arwing. Outside of the cockpit, the silhouette began to get larger. Fox wasn't sure how much time was passing, but he did know that it was going too quickly for his health. He continued to work the controls, overriding as many safety measures as he could without causing the small fighter craft to rip itself apart when he activated it's powerful engines.

Finally, the instruments on Fox's cockpit lit up. Grinning, he hit the turbo switch on his throttle. The powerful G-diffusers rocketed the arwing forward, so fast that Fox nearly blacked out. Once his vision cleared, he banked left, narrowly missing a trail of bright-red lasers. He attempted to get behind the source of the fire, but only ended up taking a few hits to his left wing. He realized that the craft had stayed on his tail the entire time. Angrily, he punched the throttle, and discovered that his ship was actually quite a bit faster than the one on his tail. Once he had a fair amount of distance behind him, Fox banked hard to the right, moving towards the enemy head-on. He could almost imagine the startled pilot deciding on whether he should try and head towards the arwing, or try to get away from speeding craft. Fox didn't give him a chance, using a smart bomb to evaporate the small ship.

"Everyone, report!" he barked into his radio, hoping that his team was faring better than he was.

Luckily they were, to a certain extent. The only one who had taken any damage was Falco, and it was minor. Knowing that his squadron was safe, Fox focused on the fight ahead. He managed to get on the tail of one fighter that had strayed from its wingman. Fox attempted to get a lock on the nimble craft, but failed. Moving in closer, he opened fire, without a lock. The green bolts flew past the craft, revealing what Fox thought was a letter "A," but it vanished back into the darkness before he could be sure. Continuing forward, he adjusted his aim, fired again, and separated a few vital components, notably the living one, from the rest of the ship.

Almost instantaneously, Fox took a direct hit to his right wing. Surprisingly, the wing was nearly sheared off. Rolling, Fox managed managed to line up a shot on the second ship. Unfortunately, the ship banked right so steeply that it managed to get on Fox's tail. _Oh no you don't,_ he thought to himself, gunning his engines. After only a few seconds the ship was too far away to use its small lasers. Feeling confident, Fox maneuvered so that he was head on with the enemy craft. He hoped that his earlier maneuver would work twice. Unfortunately, this pilot was a bit smarter, and quickly banked away when Fox released another lethal cylinder. He closed in, and the two ships began harassing each other.

After what seemed like hours of constant maneuvering, Fox finally managed to destroy the fighter, though it took almost all of his smart bombs. Slowing his ship down, he realized that there were no other enemies in the area. And, surprisingly, there were only four or five wrecks drifting about. Fox could have sworn he saw nearly twice that on his radar earlier.

"Fox, it looks like they're all gone," Slippy reported.

"Are you sure, there's only a few here..." Fox replied doubtfully.

"The rest of them must have turned tail," Falco said, in his usual condescending tone.

"Damn, Pepper's not gonna like this. How did they see us anyway?" Fox said.

Slippy theorized that the pirates probably had advanced sensors, since it's more than a little difficult to find a small, powered down fighter in the shadow of a gas giant. Peppy added that their communications may also have given them away. Fox figured it was probably a combination of the two.

"Uh, Fox, you may wanna look at this," Falco said, interrupting the conversation.

Fox nudged his arwing over to the wreck of a ship that was less damaged than the rest. When he got there, he couldn't believe his eyes.

"Is that-"

"Yup," Falco replied.

"Geez, Pepper's definitely not going to like this," Fox sputtered out.

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><p><em>Well, hopefully this sets up the rest of the story pretty well. I think it will be eight to nine chapters. Once again, please give me some feedback, so I can do a bit better as I keep writing these. Also, thanks for taking the time to read my story!<em>


	2. A New Mission

Fox looked around the drab office. It was functional, certainly, but it wasn't very impressive. A plassteel desk stood at the center of the room, shifted slightly towards the rear wall. It was flanked with two shelves, each containing various binders. Fox examined the binders, and saw that most of them regarded financial situations, rather than the tactical ones that he would have expected. Suddenly, he wasn't so sure that Pepper had been chosen as his liaison due to his tactical knowledge.

"Fox! How are you?" Pepper said, entering the room.

"Things could better, general. And you?" Fox replied, as cordially as he could.

"About the same as you, it seems. These reconstruction efforts require more resource management than I had to do at the peak of the war! On top of that, we've had reports of growing pirate and mercenary activity across the system." Fox noticed that Pepper looked a few years older than when they had last met. Strangely, that was only a few months ago.

"Sorry to hear that general," Fox replied, not knowing exactly what to say.

"Yes, well, that's why you're here. We need somebody to carry out an extremely sensitive mission," Pepper began, "Our forces are stretched thin. Not only have we had to manage massive reconstruction efforts on our own planet, but several other planets in the Lylat system have contacted us for aid."

"We'd be happy to help, general," Fox said, hoping Pepper didn't notice just how desperate he sounded.

"Well, I guess we'd better cut to the chase, then," Pepper replied. He selected a few binders off the shelf to his left, and dropped them on the table in front of Fox.

"These are... from our last mission?" Fox said.

"Yes. I'm afraid I have some bad news. Remember the markings you saw on that wrecked ship?" Pepper asked.

"Uh-huh. It looked like the colors from Andross' empire. I figured it was probably just some surplus ship that the pirates stumbled onto."

"I wish that were true," Pepper pointed to a photograph of one of the damaged ships. "See these symbols? They're different from the ones used by Andross' forces."

"What does that mean?" Fox asked, suddenly feeling very cold.

Pepper took a deep breath. "We believe that some of Andross' forces have regrouped, and have formed a faction known as the Andross Loyalists."

Fox felt as if he had taken a punch to the gut. He couldn't believe his ears. Nearly all of Andross' allies were imprisoned after the invasion, one of the few instances where a defeated army was not granted a political pardon.

"Was that-" Fox began.

"Yes, those were the forces you encountered. We suspected they were ransacking supply shipments in the area, but we weren't sure if they were serious military forces or just a few well-equipped pirates. That's why we sent you in."

"What! You put me and my team in danger just to see whether or not some pirates were militarily trained!" Fox nearly yelled. He struggled to contain himself.

"Yes. We knew that you could handle it. And, we had a patrol in another system on standby if you sent out a distress signal," Pepper replied.

"Fine," Fox said, taking a deep breath and trying to calm himself. "Why do you need me now?"

"We've tracked the patrol back to the planet Halcyon. We've been monitoring it for several days, and it seem like various forces are arriving and going down to the surface of the planet."

"Do you know how many ships are already there?" Fox asked.

"No. Every patrol we've tried to send onto the planet surface has disappeared. That's why we need you. We want you to perform surveillance on the planet, relay the information back, and attack. I realize that you may be seriously outgunned if you attack on your own, but we have absolutely no forces to spare," Pepper said.

"Alright, we'll do it. But, I want triple our normal fee. These ships are extremely advanced, and pose quite a threat to my team..." Fox began his usual 'We're in great danger, we need decent wages' act.

"I've already talked it over with my commanding officers. You'll have four times your normal fee, compensation for repairs, and a small amount in advance to get your equipment in fighting shape. Will that do?" Pepper asked.

"Uh, certainly. We'll head out as soon as we get repaired and rearmed," Fox said. He was surprised at the large payment Pepper was offering. While he wasn't complaining, it did bother him a bit at how important Pepper thought this mission was.

"Excellent. I'll contact you every two days for mission updates," Pepper said. "Oh, and Fox," he said as Fox was walking out the door.

"Yes general?" Fox asked.

"Be careful. These are trained soldiers you're dealing with. They have years of experience and extremely advanced equipment."

"Don't worry general, we'll be able to handle it."

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><p><em>I hope you enjoyed this chapter. It slows down quite a bit here, but the next chapter will be pretty interesting. Fox might not be able to deal with what he finds at the planet...<em>


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